A crowd-sourcing platform which tackles sexual harassment and abuse has won Peace Direct's Women-led Peace-building Award 2017. Red Dot Foundation (Safecity), founded by Elsa Marie D'Silva, uses data of reported abuse in public places to highlight hotspots, and to help influence policy-makers.

How unified, or diverse, were the phenomena covered by the term 'the Arab Spring'? What are the best explanations of why they ran into difficulties in so many countries? Why were peaceful demonstrations in Syria and Yemen followed by long wars? Why was democratization so difficult to achieve? What lessons can be learned about the possibilities of political change, and the capacity of civil resistance to achieve it?

Friday 21 October, eight days from today, will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in modern British history: the collapse of a colliery spoil tip onto the town of Aberfan that lead to 144 deaths, including more than 100 children who were killed when their school was crushed by the land slide.

On 29 January, a bill proposed by Lord Michael Mills was debated in the House of Lords. The bill proposed that a 'public Advocate' be established to "provide advice to, and act as data controller for, representatives of the deceased after major incidents". Stewart Wood spoke in favour of this proposition and, having been briefed extensively by Iain McLean and his former research officer Martin Johnes (now at Swansea University), cited the example of the Aberfan tragedy of 1966 and the "stunning combination of insensitivity and professional self-protection" from the inquiry that followed it.

In a recent article for the American Journal of Political Science, co-written with Daniel Stegmueller, David and Daniel ask, "Why is the difference in redistribution preferences between the rich and the poor high in some countries and low in others?" They add, "In this article, we argue that it has a lot to do with the rich and very little to do with the poor."